An everyday tale of family and political life with a dollop of Formula One and various random thoughts on the side.

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Misleading headline of the day - the Guardian on Megrahi release

If you see a headline that says "Wikileaks Cables: Lockerbie Bomber freed after Gadaffi's Thuggish Threats" it does sort of imply some sort of causality between the latter and the former.

It implies that the Libyan Leader basically sent the boys round to Bute House and Alex Salmond meekly complied with their wishes.

Bad taste this may be, but it does amuse me that anyone could think this was even remotely plausible.There are mental images going round my head that will keep me amused for hours on that one.

Seriously, though, if you actually go read the full report, it actually says three things: that Gadaffi had had a good go at the UK Government, threatening UK diplomats, business and interests should Megrahi die in prison; that the Scottish Government was courted and offered "a parade of treats" which they knocked back and, surprise, surprise, the decision to release Megrahi was taken by the Scottish Government which apparently underestimated the international disapproval it would receive. Both the elements referred to in the headlines happened but one did not cause the other.

I have said all along and without embarrassment that I think that Kenny MacAskill did absolutely the right thing to release Megrahi, given the medical evidence he had available. I still hold to that and had I been in his position I'd have released him too. And that's not just about my soft heart - it's because it was the right thing to do.

There's nothing in the Wikileaks cables that suggests anything to the contrary and the Guardian's sensationalist headline should actually have read "Megrahi: as we thought, nothing to see here."